


Clarity

by Severina



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 03:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17593538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: Gisla, as she prepares to annul her marriage to Rollo





	Clarity

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little gapfiller-y type thing to see if I could get into Gisla's head. Some dialogue taken from the episode.
> 
> * * *

He spoke, his accent near flawless, and for a moment she faltered.

There had been no hesitation when she first entered the room with her courtiers and the emissary from the holy land. She was the Princess Gisla, beloved of her people, wielder of the sacred Oriflamme; he was the savage that stripped to his skin and grunted like a wild boar as he attempted to scale her walls. Her father's equerry could cut his hair and dress him in finery but a pig in velvet robes and silk slippers was still a swine. She had no intention of remaining wedded to an illiterate barbarian. Like her treasured Paris, she was impregnable.

And then he spoke, and she found herself sending her maidens away; addressing the envoy of his Holiness with a brusqueness that left his rotund face juddering in shock before he left to find the refreshment he clearly did not require. And when the room had emptied of all but her and the stranger who was her husband, she opened her heart. Rollo's eyes didn't leave her as she circled him, and she could not deny that she found his countenance pleasing. Her husband was a handsome man when divested of matted hair and coarse leathers, and she felt a rare and surprising shame for the way she had laughed at him when she had come across him during his transformation. He had endeavored only to please her and she had mocked him.

It was, she knew now, the only defense she had at the time. Her barbed tongue was useless against one who did not speak the language; her feeble attempts to threaten him with physical violence were met with smirks and snores. But her derision? Ahh, that had stripped the light from his eyes, made him stumble in his steps. And she had done it not because she denied his love but because she feared it. The primal part of her brain saw what her vaunted independence and fierce intelligence rejected: that this man was a protector. A sleeping bear that when wakened from his den would defend those he loved to his last breath. In those strong arms she would never feel fear. With her back against his broad chest she would only know support. 

But it was the way he looked at her now that made her chest tighten and her stomach flutter. He watched her as though she were precious, a jewel, and it was with a start that she realized that he had always done so. 

She had long known that she would not always be able to refuse her suitors; that eventually her father would cease to be her father alone, and the Emperor would make the decision on whom she married. She knew little of courtship and less still of the workings of the marriage bed, save the act that resulted in the sacred state of childbearing. She had known also that it was her responsibility as a dutiful wife to bear her husband's night-time proclivities with the utmost submission. But when Rollo looked at her with eyes that shone with appreciation, she felt their burn and wondered if there might be more in her future than passivity beneath the heavy brocade covers. Because she returned his look and found she craved his touch.

There was little in him now of the brute who stormed the gates of her city, who confounded Count Odo's best defenses. But she had to be sure.

"Let me ask you," she said to him, "what is more important to you: our marriage, your appointment by the Emperor, or your Viking soul?"

"Did I not kill all my own warriors?"

It was the answer Gisla expected, a response that intended to put her on the defensive and yet revealed nothing. In this, the Northmen and the Frankish were perhaps not so different.

"Yes," she agreed, "but I think that was a very Viking thing to do, non? It wasn't personal. I don't know if it meant anything to you."

He shifted, but she was still studying his eyes. The window to the soul, the poets said. Gisla did not know if that was true, but she knew that often when the mouth lied, the eyes did not. And she saw no untruth there when he removed the silver band from his wrist and held it before her. 

"This means something to me," he said. _This_ is personal." Her husband pressed the carved arm-ring into her palm. "Do with it what you will." 

Her breath caught.

The silver band was still warm from the touch of his flesh when she closed her fingers around it. Lighter than it ought to be, for all the power that it held over the Northmen. But heavier, too, as though the braided coils of the serpent waited for only the right word and the creature would unfurl in her palm. Venomous, in the wrong hands. Or a totem awaiting benediction. She smoothed a thumb unthinkingly over the head of the snake before raising her eyes. 

"I accept your gift with honour," she said.

"And with what will you gift me in return, Princess?"

Gisla lifted her chin. If he sought to shame her, he knew her not at all. "Wise counsel," she answered. "Knowledge of the workings of my father's court." She took a breath; for all her intellect, she also knew her place in the world when viewed through the eyes of men. "The free use of my body as your wife and the bearing of your—"

She had cast her eyes downward when she spoke of carnal things best left in the bedchamber; did not see that Rollo had moved to touch her until she felt the tips of his fingers on the edge of her jaw. She had suffered through the amorous advances of several of her father's Lords; had shuddered inwardly whenever Odo managed to brush against her, barely resisting the urge to rub away the oily residue his corpulent fingers seemed to leave against her skin.

No man's touch ever felt like golden fire the way Rollo's did. 

Her eyes closed when his palm caressed her cheek. His skin was calloused, rough from many years of the cold and the axe. Her own complexion was pale and flawless, and the contrast made her shiver and wonder what his touch would feel like on her throat. The curve of her hip. The fullness of her breast.

"Your heart?" he asked.

She was not often speechless. But now all her clever words failed her. Her eyes opened; she tilted her head until Rollo's fingers buried beneath the fall of her hair to caress her nape. She drew in the scent of him – not the overly perfumed oils of the court, but earth and musk and new growth. Her fingers twitched to trace the markings of the pagan upbringing etched on his skin; to follow each curving line with her lips and rebrand him as her own.

It seemed that her heart had already been given. Now she must only trust her barbarian to keep it safe.


End file.
